Does density of shrapnel holes tell something about weapon used to down MH17?

Density of shrapnel holes tell us something about the weapon used, if the location of the explosion is known. Some scientific rule determine the density related to distance.

This law is called “inverse square law” and is explained in the image below.

Some people believe that a BUK could not have been used to down MH17. This because the location of the explosion does not match with the density of shrapnel holes observed on MH17. They use the damage of the AA test to compare.

Please use this post for all further comments on density!

In this thread at my website an interesting discussion is going on about density. User Eugene made the image below.

However the position of the cockpit window of B777 compared to IL86 is not the same. The cockpit window in image below of the B777 is the most closest to the tail. The cockpit window of the IL86 is second closest to the tail.

The image below shows the reconstruction of MH17 and the damage seen after the test done by Almaz Antey. The image was made by user sotilaspassi on this website.

What we see is that the area on MH17 with likely the most density of fragment holes is totally gone. So we cannot compare the density of this area with the same area on the IL86.

This is one of the few photos publically available which shows details of the results of the test performed by AA, The photo shows the area just under the cockpit window on the lefthand side of the IL86 , just left of the centerline.

52 Comments on Does density of shrapnel holes tell something about weapon used to down MH17?

On the above image (IMHO) the lowest density of shrapnel hit area of MH17 is being compared to highest density shrapnel area of IL86.

To me it seems the most dense fragment impact area of MH17 seems so heavily affected that almost nothing remains of it. Mainly the edges of the impact area (low density) were covered for reconstruction by DSB.

Also one must note that fast (2400m/s + light weight) shrapnel hit the same area than slow (1100m/s + heavy weight) shrapnel in the IL86 case.
When missile and target move against each other fast (~2540m/s?) and slow (~1320m/s?) shrapnel hit slightly different areas.
So, result looks different.

sotilisassi has got quite a talent of squeezing lots of bs into a single message. I am unable to write extensively from my phone for a couple of days, unfortunately. But planning to reply. Thanks admin.

“To me it seems the most dense fragment impact area of MH17 seems so heavily affected that almost nothing remains of it. Mainly the edges of the impact area (low density) were covered for reconstruction by DSB.”

I agree and A-A disagreed with the DSB in regard to the angle of the penetrations: A-A believe that the aircraft’s main frames were cut leading to a disintegration of the upper port side cockpit area something that was not seen in their simulation of a detonation where a missile approached from the Snizhne direction.

“Also one must note that fast (2400m/s + light weight) shrapnel hit the same area than slow (1100m/s + heavy weight) shrapnel in the IL86 case.
When missile and target move against each other fast (~2540m/s?) and slow (~1320m/s?) shrapnel hit slightly different areas.
So, result looks different.”

Yes the speed differentials between various fragment elements within the fragmentation spread and the moving target are crucial in determining the impact distribution.

In one of their videos DSB also states that cockpit was separated because of the force of explosion and shrapnel.

A-A initially said if launched from Snizhne the cockpit would be cut off. That is exactly what has happened with MH17.
(then those idiots detonate the warhead very far away from IL86, so far that IL86 would have continued to fly (without pilots))

Relative velocity between plane, missile and shrapnel is less important if flying time of fragments goes to the limit of nil: 0.00075 seconds for a detonation point of 1.5 meters. This is because then time almost stands still. Then we are allowed to compare static and dynamic detonation for windshields at a distance of 1.5 meters for MH17 and 3 meters for AA.

We expect the BUK of MH17 on shorter distance to be much more powerful to destroy the left windshields than the BUK of AA. But the opposite happened and the windows were not destroyed:

Even in its most dense green area the BUK of MH17 was unable to destroy the windows from 1.5 meters, while the BUK of AA in green destroyed the second left windshield already from about 3 meters.

Let’s accept green is light shrapnel and yellow are heavy fragments. Then window 2, the second of the left for AA is broken by green or light fragments. But both left windshields of the Boeing 777 are not broken by green or light fragments, even if distance was halved. Would Boeing simply have better windshields?

It might be in 0.00075 seconds the lancet of the BUK of MH17 had less time to develop than that of AA with 0.0015 seconds. This is relevant for the place of green and yellow on the planes, but does not affect the difference in strength of green between both warheads. Though, might be light shrapnel of MH17 was still in the acceleration phase.

I think it is very doubtful that warhead 9N314M was used for the MH17 if windshields are comparable.

Also lighter SAM or A2A would be completely useless if penetration of this piece of steel from 1.5 meter was impossible:

“The missile detonated within a metre of the plane’s cockpit” The article may have simply misquoted DSB. The coroner also said the killing was “deliberately”. How does he know? In 1988 the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian airbus, while operating in the territorial waters of Iran. The crew made many incomprehensible mistakes, the captain was proven trigger happy, but it is still called an accident. Apparently it makes a difference who the victims are.

This is not a simple misquote of the DSB. This is a shift in the mainstream media’s narrative about what happened. I see in these stories an effort even to make it look like the DSB agrees the detonation point was within 1 meter of the cockpit.

Consider again what the Daily Mail wrote: “The video showed how the missile exploded just inches from the cockpit, killing the pilots and breaking off the front of the aircraft.”

The video in fact shows no such thing. It shows a detonation several meters from the cockpit.

The statements are deliberate that the detonation occurred within 1 meter of the cockpit. I’ll change my conclusion only if these sources issue a correction or retraction.

The Daily Mail made a mistake in the same sentence about the time of the explosion (it actally happened at 4.20pm local time or 1.20pm GMT). What they said about the distance of one metre could have been a mistake as well:
“The Dutch investigation found that the missile contained a Russian made warhead which detonated one metre from the left side of the plane’s cockpit at 1.20pm local time.”

Even Almaz Antey don’t put the distance at within a metre. They calculated 1.6 m or more.

The time error is unrelated. I took it to mean the time at the UK, which was actually 2:20.

Whatever the writer intended to say about the time, that is unrelated to the statement about the point of detonation. It is impossible to view the simulation provided by the DSB and conclude that the detonation point was “within 1 meter” or “within inches” of the cockpit.

The shift in the narrative about the detonation distance either will or won’t be supported by the technical details of the criminal report.

I will not be surprised if the criminal report deviates from the DSB technical report about this important detail.

Because the A-A test is absolutely and fully void+futile I do not plan to reply on it. RU strategy is to pour out so much disinformation that their population does not see through it, A-A is working hard to fabricate material for them.

I genuinely mixed up the window on the picture that admin has put on this page. Sorry for that. Community came to the rescue. Buk, however, is not rescued but R-27 might – the previous (incorrect) comparison would rule out R-27 too. That Boeing window I used does have a smaller density of holes than the peak spot. To redo the comparison, I’ve grabbed the picture of the middle window plastic film that the DSB placed on the mockup – this should be closer to the spot of most intensity on Mh-17. The corrected comparison expectedly shows a less drastic difference, but still noticeable. There still seems to be lack of holes on mh-17 (for a Buk), by around a factor of four.

While working with the pictures of Mh-17 and the AA test I cant stop noticing the differences. For example, the hole density on Mh-17 drops out very quickly – as we see the next window is already less covered with holes. While on Il-86 a much wider area is covered by holes roughly equally. This shows that the AA explosion location was indeed much further from the body than the real location. If AA placed the warhead at the correct position the density of holes would be much much higher (with the 1/r^2 law) than what we see on the wreckage.

Here is an illustration of that it is harder to locate the peak damage point on Il-86 than on Mh-17:http://savepic.ru/9818803.png (the effect is more noticeable at a closer look). This is because the hole density drops out quicker on the Boeing, which is, in turn, because the AA detonation point was much further than the real one next to the flight Mh-17 (AA explicitly placed the warhead at the DSB prescribed point). I don’t think many people would contest this conclusion after looking at the picture.

To verify that AA placed the warhead at the DSB point, I did a quick screen grab from the AA video right before the explosion. If anything, AA had placed the warhead further than prescribed by the DSB, which should only make the hole density argument stronger.http://savepic.ru/9776829.gif

If the DSB reconstruction had been more complete then it would be even more obvious that the damage to MH17 is much more localized than the damage to the Il-86 in the AA test.

It is hard to make a reconstruction lie without getting caught. The best way to mislead is to omit significant pieces altogether from the reconstruction.

The remains of MH17 tell the truth. The murder weapon was a smaller missile with a passive seeker that detonated very close to the left side of the cockpit. It is impossible to position and detonate a 70 kg Buk warhead in a way that closely resembles MH17’s pattern of hole damage.

Does anyone have a drawing of the middle window of the 777? To estimate window sizes I only used the drawing of the window 3 and a picture that looked to me the most orthogonal I could find. I tried to place the 20×30 cm square so that the hole density within it is representative of the hole density over entire pane.http://savepic.ru/9801418.png

Also, does anyone know a better picture for that between-pane film full of holes that the DSB recovered?

As to the peak density spot on Il-86. My position is probably well off too (which again should only make the argument stronger). Anyone is welcomed to suggest a better one here http://savepic.ru/9813709.jpg. Once looking for the peak spot you’ll inevitably notice that a big area on Il-86 is covered with approximately equal hole density, which is due to a big distance to the explosion.

To start, I think it is safe to assume that the AA explosion distance was at least twice as big as the real distance to the area where the hole density is measured. Here is an overlay where the distance mismatch is around a factor of 2.6, which, I think, is the most realistic guess we need to keep in mind. According to the AA-vs-DSB numbers, the distance difference can be even higher: up-to a factor of three.http://uploads.ru/OPEzw.png

On the window pane film from the Boeing 777 I counted around hundred holes, which gives the density of roughly one hole per 28 square centimetres.http://uploads.ru/uQv6g.png

On a piece of Il-86, of which we have high res pictures, I counted 26 holes, which gives the density of roughly one hole per 37 square centimetres.http://uploads.ru/CdbtB.png

Overall we observe that the hole density on Mh-17 window is around a third greater than the hole density on a part of Il-86. But we need a factor of 2×2=4 (at least) / 2.6×2.6=6.7 (realistically) / 3*3=9 (at worst) higher density of holes on the Boeing 777.

Conclusion: the Mh-17 wreckage lacks holes by a factor of THREE (at least) to FIVE (realistically) for a Buk to be the murder weapon.

PS: admin, if you are going to be updating the blogpost with the pictures, please, also consider changing the name of the title. Your “does density of shrapnel holes tell something about weapon?” sounds a bit like silly “does tire track pattern has anything to do with the tire that left it?”.

“For a Buk to be the murder weapon we need to see a higher density of holes on the wreckage. By some factor that lies somewhere in the range: 4 (at least) .. 6.7 (realistically) .. 9 (at worst).”

If one wants to make an effective argument they have to operate by terms understandable by Eurovision lovers. If anything other than trivial things gets involved one quickly starts loosing audience. The reasoning behind the hole density comparison is not trivial. Firstly, it hinges on the wrong-distance-to-detonation-point argument. Most readers would be lost at this instant. Secondly, it involves the square distance law. Here more, even technically minded, people loose interest: too much venture into the “unknown” territory. As a result, a perfectly valid argument does not get publicity according to its seriousness. And to make the delivery worse I am using a poor language.

Fortunately, we have another serious, but easier to understand approach: “Hey, ma, see no bowtie holes!”

Isn’t this comparing apples to oranges? The Boeing 777 cockpit window is positioned at such an angle to the missile that it catches the full hit.
The area of the IL86 is more to the side. A relative larger part of the shrapnel will miss the fuselage because of this angle.
Tried to explain it in this badly illustrated imagehttp://www.besparenophypotheek.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/compare.png

This is a valid point. And a better analysis should include/mention/estimate the effect.

If you find a more densely holed area, I’ll happily estimate density on it. I don’t think there is one. There is a surviving piece of metal under the middle window covered with holes. It might be more normally oriented towards the explosion source. One can tell this by examining the directions of the holes – the fragment velocity there seem to be quite orthogonal to the surface (need a better look though). The hole density on that fragment is visually very similar to that of the middle window.

On my old model it looked like the window was pretty normal to the direction to the explosion point. http://savepic.ru/9929005.jpg
I however must admit that the model was a bit wrong. A better model would allow to judge the angle better, but I fail to see how it can fully account for the drastic density difference.

Anyway, mathematics tells us that a smooth shape would have its normal directed towards a given point at the point nearest to the given point. Simply put, the nearest point will be hit by shrapnel perpendicularly to the surface. It will also have the highest hole density. So it’d be great if we could know what part of the Boeing 777 had even higher density of holes than the middle window. Would it de drastically different? Probably not.

To finish, there are other sources of errors in the analysis, such as my bias in thinking what counts as a hole, slight off-normal photographing angle of the Il-86 surface, possible error to the length scale on Il-86 (for that I used the ruler photographed by AA from the other side), you name it. So there is bound to be some error. It is however hard to see where the error can reach the magnitude required to fully explain the hole density difference observed.

I am glad you are not questioning the “DSB placed the detonation point too far” assertion.

This is going to be an interesting post for the technically minded people.

Previously (see above) I estimated the hole density on Mh-17 middle window to be 360 holes/sq.meter, and on Il-86 (under the middle window) to be 270 holes/sq.meter. Leaving aside the issue that the Mh-17 wreckage should have much much higher hole density (~6x, for a Buk), I asked myself a question: where would the hole density on Mh-17 be equal to the hole density on Il-86? It is easy to calculate via the inverse square law: at a point that is sqrt(360/270)=1.15 times further from the explosion point. That is, only 15% further than the window centre the drop in the hole density should be sufficient to equalise it to that on Il-86. Incidentally, this roughly coincides with the place where the Il-86 hole density is estimated – just under the window.

So what does this tell us? At a first glance not much. It probably can serve as an indication that what Almaz-Antey exploded in their test was indeed a Buk warhead. But more thorough readers would point out the fact that the errors involved in the hole density estimation should prevent us from drawing solid conclusions, the support for this assertion is only probabilistic. And they would be right.

But, what’s interesting is that that 15% more distant point also roughly coincides with the place where TNO sampled the characteristic distance between holes – the so called “pitch”. From reading the report it is clear that they’ve used the pitch in the otherwise poorly described matching algorithm used to determine the explosion point: “The relative distance between individual fragment holes (the pitch) is an indicator for the distance between the warhead and the airplane. The pitch is used in Chapter 5 during the matching of the observed and simulated damage patterns.” http://savepic.ru/10136876.jpg

So far so good. I am sure most of the readers would think that there is nothing wrong in using the pitch while determining the detonation point.

But actually there is something very wrong here, and this is where the important idea of this comment starts. The pitch is directly related to the hole density. The fact that the ll-86 and the 777 have roughly equal hole density at the spot where the pitch is sampled tells us that TNO likely ran their algorithm correctly, and it worked as I described above, matching the simulated pitch to that of Buk.

But incorporating the pitch into the algorithm makes it bound to find a detonation point at a fixed distance. Namely, at the distance from where the simulated hole density would match that of Buk. To put it simply, the algorithm would look for a detonation point under the assumption that the warhead was a Buk one. And it found it to be ~2.5 times further from the real explosion point, the point where all the shrapnel scratch mark lines meet. Which we know is wrong and there are several ways for showing this, not just stringing.

In mathematics this sort of reasoning is called “reductio ad absurdum”: an assumption is made, and if the outcome is shown to be wrong it proves that the assumption was false in the first place. The DSB, of course, were not prepared to abandon the Buk warhead assumption.

Theoretically it is possible that up to this point the DSB really thought that the warhead was a Buk one (I don’t think so). They’d found the planted bowties and might have thought that they were genuine. So, for them, it was sensible to incorporate the knowledge of the warhead to refine the method for the detonation point determination. But once the method gave a very wrong detonation point they should have started suspecting that the assumption could be invalid. But, of course, the fuckers were never going to question the Buk assumption.

Personally, I believe the DSB knew it all along that the bowties were planted. Because, for example, they themselves could see no bowtie shaped holes on the pictures of the wreckage, or because they knew about employment of fishy procedures for how the bowties were extracted and documented. That’s why they hoped for more remains of the wreckage to disappear from the crash site, which would make proving Buk only via found bowties sufficient and rigging less obvious, and kept delaying the recovery operation. Their official excuse for delaying the recovery by four months (!) was that the crash site was unsafe. But we know full well, from the almost permanent presence on site of the journalists in mass, that this was far from being true.

N.B.:

1) If you check my comments from last year you’ll see that I always claimed that the DSB placed the detonation point too far to match the Buk’s density. But I am guilty of not reading the report carefully till late, when it became apparent that they did it quite explicitly. Also previously I, kind of, mentally was not realising the sharp inverse square dependence of density on distance, and that a factor of 2.5 distance difference should lead to a factor of 6.25 hole density difference (while we only see a factor of around 1).

2) Due to me or not, but Russian investigating community also started to look into the hole density issue equipping themselves with the correct distance dependence law. Glad to see that.

3) Not all claims by me are originally mine, which you might think. I often convey ideas by others picked on Russian forums.

4) I can only imagine the interest the DSB members are following out attempts to reverse engineer them rigging the report (hey Tjibbe!). They actually made a good job in hiding the rigging. Some of our arguments needed to prove the rigging, such as the hole density one presented here, don’t go very far with general public, being too technical. Fortunately, we always have the much simpler “no bowtie holes” argument to fall back to if understanding by the general public is desired.

5) I saw someone saying that the official figure for the hole density by the DSB was 250 holes/sq.meter. Anyone knows where it is mentioned in the report? Obviously, this is worse than 360, making the hole density argument a little stronger.

Thanks. Then I overestimated it compared to the DSB (though my hole count on the window was close to theirs: 98 vs 102). It’s not a very easy thing to do. I encourage everyone to estimate the hole density yourself, so my pro-Russian bias does not get in the way. However, I doubt that you’ll be able to estimate the hole density differently from me by a factor of SIX needed to save Buk as a murder weapon.

PS: someone also said on a forum that the hole density by the DSB in the preliminary report was around 60, at which Almaz-Antay laughed, which made the DSB correct it up.

@Eugene : the DSB preliminary report does not mention anything on density.
It could be the draft final report which was sent to all member states mentioned a density of 60. The draft final report was however never published.
The consultation appendix also does not mention density so for me this ’60 hits per sq meter’ is just nonsense.

It is remarkable that Rosaviatsiya did not mention the density in the letter sent to DSB at all. I am wondering why they did not mention this.
Rosaviatsiya does mention that the location determined by DSB is not right.

> It is remarkable that Rosaviatsiya did not mention the density in the letter sent to DSB at all. I am wondering why they did not mention this.

I think the answer might be because of the ambiguity of what the DSB hole density should be compared against: 1) Buk hole density from the DSB detonation point or 2) Buk hole density from the point Rosaviatsiya believed to be true. And we see that the hole densities between the two cases differ by a large factor.

They did not compare it to the case 1 because this would mean comparing to a value from an incorrect model. They did not compare it to the case 2 because that would require a two step proof (first the DSB detonation point needs to be proven incorrect).

It’s similar to the question as to why AA placed the warhead at the DSB point versus their own point. If they placed it at their own point and obtained a vastly different damage picture, what would be a follow up step if the DSB said “of course, you’ve positioned the missile incorrectly”? None. Therefore the only viable alternative for AA was to place the warhead in the DSB point and show that the damage pattern is different from what’s observed on the wreckage.

Yes. BTW, I think, those missing large pieces of skin near the most intense spot on Mh-17 were (mostly) removed by the blast wave that diminishes quickly with distance (Hopkinson-Cranz law: 1/r^3). The fact that the large skin parts are not seen missing on Il-86 is also a telltale sign that the detonation was much closer on Mh-17 even though the warhead was smaller.

I think I can totally quantify that if needed. Has been doing analytical mechanics for the most part of my career. That area is not the one I am normally making mistakes in, as I professionally deal with more complex things. E.g. If someone is fluent in mentally working with Lorenz transformations it will not make him likely to make mistakes while working with Galilean transformations.

On short distance the blast wave is earlier than fragments. Therefore this likely was not the reason of the removal of the skin near the most intense spot.

Decompression certainly will have partly ruined the hull of the cockpit. But after decompression air pressure was equalized and this cannot be the cause of the further disintegration of the plane.

Also the speed of 905 km/h had not much influence on the falling apart of the plane since air density is very low at 10 km.

This all makes the disintegration of the upper forward fuselage in front of STA655 a miracle. Most of where bowties could have impacted has disappeared from site 2 of Petropavlivka.

The total disintegration of the MH17 in front of STA888 within ONE SECOND has not yet been explained. I tried to find out how the beams of the lower forward fuselage in front of STA655, found at site 3 Rozsypne, were broken, but the site of DSB was down today.

We took it for granted that fragments heralded the disintegration of the MH17. That is a major error in reasoning. Since we have not the slightest proof, only physical laws which we use in the wrong way. Noway we can explain the plane fell apart in front of STA888 within ONE SECOND. Also not in two or three seconds. We simply started with the wrong track and must reorder the permutation of this very complicated event. Damned, I’m off topic again.

Basic Dimension,
> Holes in zirconium windshields are no reliable source of information, since squares are only visible on the metal strips

The film certainly does not retain information about the shape of the fragments, like your pictures show. But the number of holes in the film has direct relation to the number of fragments that have flown through it.

If you think that the film is a bad piece to measure the hole density on, please, try to estimate it yourself on the surrounding pieces of surviving metal.

> On short distance the blast wave is earlier than fragments. Therefore this likely was not the reason of the removal of the skin near the most intense spot.

If blast wave hits the skin first, why cannot it be the cause of the removal of it? Though I don’t think we should ponder much about what exactly happened during the explosion. We just don’t have enough experience dealing with real explosions.

> Noway we can explain the plane fell apart in front of STA888 within ONE SECOND. Also not in two or three seconds.

People on mh17.webtalk.ru are still trying to reconstruct the timeline of the plane breaking apart. Unfortunately, you don’t seem to be able to read Russian. Yes, not everything is clear about how it disintegrated.

Well, I try to follow you and that’s already difficult enough. I have some remarks: The hole density is not only dependent on the point of detonation but also on the horizontal course angle of the missile, which we cannot know without the algorithms of A-A. But you chose the same and surface normal area for your comparisons so it will be okay.

The horizontal course angle is very dependent on how the proximity fuse is programmed. Is the BUK made for a megaplane? I doubt it, so the fuse might overreact and drills itself into de the plane:

The comparison between IL-86 and Boeing-777 is more than only static or dynamic testing. Personally I think – like you – this difference is not that important.

But I wonder if IL-86 windshields are comparable with Boeing windshields. My impression is the windshields of Boeing of 5 cm thickness are very plastic and close themselves immediately after the passing of very hot fragments. And that means I would not immediately compare fragments from different planes, but also not windshields with fragments from alu places below the windows. For then, generalization of results could become a problem, though we all learn from this work and it brings us to interesting conclusions.

BTW I forgot to mention some squares really came through the left window:

Happily the second left window lies in the area of bowties, fillers and squares – the outer layer of the warhead. That’s conform the norms of DSB, so I can accept these squares.

But I wonder if a random mix of fragments, independent from form and weight, would not be the best approach to their distribution on the plane. This means I doubt also the working of the lancet.

Also, the inventory of pitch information by DSB is ridiculous because of no data. It must be a joke of TNO and it is jumping to conclusions. Throw away these stupid analyses from DSB and Almaz-Antey and let’s start again from scratch.

Earlier I admired DSB’s ‘separated time and space blast theory’ where the inner layer of bowties and fillers exploded earlier in time and came also earlier on the front windshields of the Boeing, than in combination with the outer layer. But A-A says it just goes the other way around. I think fragment distribution is most practical to understand as a random mess.

Why this weird form of circular reasoning? Well, then I can change the horizontal course angle of the missile without bothering about kinds of shrapnel:

Earlier I came to the conclusion that the cause given by DSB for the total disintegration of the MH17 within one to three seconds underlines their incompetence.

Here we have a serious methodological issue. What is more important for this investigation, the analysis of the distribution of fragments or solving the total disintegration of this megaplane WITHIN ONE SECOND in the first place?

Only if we solve this very fundamental problem we can formulate conditional probabilities for kinds of shrapnel. For example, if a missile ruined the hull of the forward upper fuselage we do not need to require butterflies in the hull any longer. This means we first must make a trustworthy permutation of this super complicated event, before we start any analysis.

[So far so good. I am sure most of the readers would think that there is nothing wrong in using the pitch while determining the detonation point.]

Using the pitch – without reliable data – presupposes knowledge of the horizontal course angle of the missile. But they must work the other way around: from data to conclusions and not from conclusions to data. That’s exactly what you mean: [To put it simply, the algorithm would look for a detonation point under the assumption that the warhead was a Buk one.] Circular reasoning and reductio ad absurdum.

Note, that even if bowties are planted and the bowtie of RTL is scientific fraud, this does not mean the assumption of 9N314M is invalid. It only is not confirmed and that from RTL is falsified. Remember the profile of 9N314M is the only BUK warhead passing the test of albert_lex.

Furthermore, if the MH17 was torpedoed by a missile, this must be a very heavy BUK. And because fragments entered the front windows at the same time it only can be launched from Snizhne. That’s why we first must solve this issue.

[If blast wave hits the skin first, why cannot it be the cause of the removal of it?]

Because, you can see the vertical rectangles on the IL-86 which are still intact.